Dunstanville (family)

The Dunstanville family was an Anglo-Norman knightly family .

The family is first mentioned in the 1090s, when Walter de Dunstanville , his brother Robert and his son Adam are mentioned as witnesses to a document from the English King Wilhelm Rufus . The family probably originally came from Dénestanville in Normandy . Robert de Dunstanville presumably also served Arnulf de Montgomery , and as vassals of the Montgomery family , the family came into possession of lands in Sussex and Shropshire . Reginald I de Dunstanville and his wife Adeliza, who was believed to be a daughter of Humphrey de Insula , owned estates in Wiltshire around 1114 . Humphrey de Insula is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as a landowner in Wiltshire, Reginald probably came into possession of his lands through his marriage to his daughter Adeliza. Reginald and Adeliza were probably the parents of Reginald II de Dunstanville and his sister Gundreda, who are mentioned in 1130 in Wiltshire.

Reginald de Dunstanville, 1st Earl of Cornwall, on the other hand, was obviously not related to the family. He was referred to as Dunstanville by the chronicler Ordericus Vitalis , and with a Hugh Dunstanville as his official as well as with Robert de Dunstanville , members of the Dunstanville family were often among his entourage. As followers of Earl Reginald supported Robert de Dunstanville and Alan de Dunstanville (fl. 1141) during the anarchy Empress Matilda and her son, the future King Henry II. Roberts heir his nephew was Walter de Dunstanville I . With his grandson Walter III de Dunstanville , the main line of the family in Wiltshire died out in male succession in 1270. Alan de Dunstanville II , a brother of Walter I, founded a branch of the family in Oxfordshire , which died out with his sons in 1234.

Although members of the family acquired estates in Wiltshire, Shropshire, Sussex, Cornwall and Oxfordshire during the 12th and 13th centuries, they never rose to knighthood. In the 13th century the family belonged to the richer families of the knighthood, and the younger sons of the family also made it to the service of the English kings. The family never played a role in national politics.

Web links

• Kathleen Thompson: Dunstanville, de, family (per. C.1090 – c.1292). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004